Audio 4:12
Peter Greste's parents disappointed their son still in Egyptian prison

Nance Haxton
Tue Apr 01 13:25:00 EST 2014

The parents of Australian journalist Peter Greste say they are disappointed but not surprised by the decision to have his trial adjourned once more. The Australian journalist has now spent more than 90 days in prison, will have to wait until April 10 for the next hearing into allegations that he is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. His parents Lois and Juris Greste say they are extremely proud of how composed their son has been throughout the hearings.

Transcript

ELEANOR HALL: The parents of Australian journalist Peter Greste say as grave as the Egyptian court's decision was last night, they're not surprised that he was denied bail.

The journalist who is charged along with his Al Jazeera colleagues with spreading false news and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and will have to wait until April 10th for his next court appearance. He will then have spent 100 days in prison in Cairo.

His parents Lois and Juris Greste told Nance Haxton in Brisbane that they are extremely proud of how composed their son has been throughout the hearings.

JURIS GRESTE: As much as I was hoping that we would see a significant turning in the court events, I must say that I had already prepared myself to expect the unexpected which is in fact what happened.

LOIS GRESTE: I have to say that my hopes started to build up as the text messages came through that the judge had called the boys in and also the fact that there would have been all of that stuff underneath, even though we were keeping it at a very low profile, you can't help but hope a little bit in the back of all of that, that something might change, but it didn't, so we are back here where we were a week ago, almost.

Really, yes, because there was no evidence given last night.

JURIS GRESTE: Well, in fact, sadly we are not just back where we were a week ago, but we are almost back at December 29 because, really, to anybody with reasonable understanding of any of these sorts of things, they would see that there is no tangible evidence, even at the fourth court hearing.

NANCE HAXTON: Particularly given Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's hopes that she voiced yesterday that this could be Peter Greste's last appearance in court, that he could be released, that must have been particularly difficult.

LOIS GRESTE: Yes, but, again, we kept our lid on our hopes at that point. Certainly, because we have been there before, in that there's been hopes previously and they were dashed, so we decided, no, no, we will put at the back.

You know, it's one of the things we put at the back.

JURIS GRESTE: And of course, the caveat of all the good intentions that have been voiced publically of various leaders is "as soon as possible" and, without making light of it of course, as soon as possible is how long's a piece of string?

NANCE HAXTON: Your other son, Mike, is over there. Is he planning to stay for some time now?

LOIS GRESTE: Mike has a month's visa, and he's had two weeks over there now, so we have to start thinking a little bit after the next 10 days are over, what then?

JURIS GRESTE: The next shift.

LOIS GRESTE: The next shift. And, we need to talk about that, but at this stage, we have made no decisions and we will make no decisions.

NANCE HAXTON: And Mike's visiting him in prison today?

LOIS GRESTE: Yes but that won't be probably until maybe tomorrow morning, but it's possible. It depends on how quickly Mike can get in.

JURIS GRESTE: It depends entirely on what time of day it happens.

NANCE HAXTON: So just finally, how is Peter coping with this extended prison stay? It's been more than 90 days now.

LOIS GRESTE: I think it's 94 right now. So he's, from all accounts and from what Mike has said, he's absolutely remarkable.

JURIS GRESTE: At the same time, I wouldn't want anybody to even remotely imagine that he's enjoying where he is now. It is extremely hard and yet, as parents, we are just so, so proud to know that he's handling it so well, with such composure and dignity.